Communications Law Committee (CLC) – Message from the Chairs – October 2022

Friday 14 October 2022

Dear Committee Members,

As Co-Chairs of the IBA Communications Law Committee (CLC), we are very proud to present to you the 2022 IBA Communications Law Committee newsletter and to briefly report about the latest developments of the Committee.

2022 has allowed us to get back to normal. Following the success of our LPD Section conference in Berlin in late 2021, this year, the CLC has resumed in-person conferences, following a two-year gap.

The 31st Communication and Competition Conference was held in Madrid in April 2022. The Madrid Conference was very well attended and was honoured by the presence of top representatives of European, American and Middle-Eastern institutions and Spanish regulators, including keynote speakers as Nadia Calviño (Vice-President and Minister for Economy and Digitalization of the Spanish Government), Cani Fernandez (Comisión Nacional de los Mercados y la Competencia, Madrid) and Rita Wezenbeek (Director, Connectivity at European Commission, DG Communications Networks, Content and Technology (DG CONNECT)). The conference also featured in-house speakers from key communications players such as Cellnex, Uber, Google, Microsoft and Telefonica.

The IBA Annual Conference in Miami will begin very shortly. The CLC will lead/support eight panels which are:

  1. The EU artificial intelligence act: a new international standard?
  2. Regulating internet and platforms around the world: how will the digital puzzle look?
  3. Big Tech: can regulation deliver a better digital environment?
  4. Geospatial data
  5. Around the tables: A taste of hot topics in the Intellectual Property, Communications and Technology Section
  6. Contracting of IT assets (digitalisation 2.0) in an increasingly complex regulatory environment
  7. Prosecuting illegal gambling in an international context: legal and enforcement challenges and remedies; and
  8. Protecting data cross-border, after Scherms II – how do the Patriot Act, CCPA, GDPR, PIPL, etc. play a part in the whole scheme?

We do hope to see you in attendance in Miami and to join us in what are sure to be vibrant discussions with speakers and the rest of the audience. And don’t miss our traditional yearly dinner which will be on Wednesday 2 November 2022.

Looking to 2023, the 32nd Communication and Competition Conference will be held in Rome on April 17 and 18, with informative topics and a number of high-level speakers and regulators. It will be held in a charming hotel (Parco dei Principi), in the heart of the so called ‘Città Eterna’. Please consider joining us, and feel free to contact any of us with comments or suggestions.

Let us also add a little information on the Communications Law Committee. We have approximately 400 members from all continents; 90 per cent of our members are private practitioners, and ten per cent are general counsels. Only this year – based on data from July 2022 – there have been more than fifty new members.

Please feel free to encourage further professionals and GCs to join our Committee and get in touch with us if you would like to be actively involved. We are honoured to represent such an open, dynamic and highly knowledgeable committee.

Last but not least, in this newsletter you will find a very informative tour around the world of the latest developments in the Communications sector, as well as contributions on key topics in Africa, South America, Europe, Asia and Australia.

To conclude and most importantly, we do not want to miss the opportunity to highlight that the work and collaboration among the members of the IBA and all its committees have been outstanding during these difficult times. We also would like to thank our Newsletter Officer, Michael Schmittmann, and all the contributors to this newsletter’s edition. Their contribution allows the IBA Communications Law Committee to share the vision of the present and the future of our field.

We are confident that now that we are fortunately back to our face-to-face activities, we will proceed with more motivation and resilience than we have never seen before.

All the best,

Blanca Escribano
Co-Chair, IBA Communications Law Committee

Vittorio Noseda
Co-Chair, IBA Communications Law Committee